


oh, your love is sunlight

by melodiousmadrigals



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: (ok a little angst at first but mostly fluff), (slight origin story retcon), Don't copy to another site, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Love Conquers All, Steve Is Alive, wondertrevsecretsanta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21942727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodiousmadrigals/pseuds/melodiousmadrigals
Summary: Fic for @mousedetective in the WondertrevSecretSanta2019 gift exchangeDiana is paid a visit from a goddess, learns a couple of secrets, and incidentally, gets something of a midwinter gift.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74





	oh, your love is sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy, mousedetective and anyone else who happens upon this fic!! 
> 
> (as usual: no beta we die valiantly)
> 
> Title from Hozier's "Sunlight"

On the darkest day of the year, Diana startles awake, her heart pounding, muscles tensed. She thinks she catches the remnants of a dream, but they fade away before she can clasp onto them, so thorough in their retreat that they might never have come at all. It is far earlier than she would normally wake, but she finds herself completely unable to relax back into a state that might allow her to fall back to sleep. Sighing, she gets up to start coffee, but promptly decides she doesn't need any, and climbs to the roof instead, thinking that if she's up, she may as well get a sunrise out of it. 

The very first rays are only just peeking over the horizon, throwing the light dusting of new snow into a fresh, golden relief, when she hears footsteps approaching and whirls to face the newcomer, senses prickling at an even higher frequency than they have been all morning. 

In front of Diana is a woman she has never seen before, with bright eyes and dark skin, a soft, calming kind of beauty.

“Hello, dear one,” the woman says. Her voice is rich, thick and sweet like honey. 

The woman may be unknown, but there is something about her that sets Diana vibrating, a gentle current of electricity deep in her bones that extends from the depths of her body to the tips of her fingers. 

It registers without thought that this is a goddess, even if they are all supposed to be dead. 

“Hestia?” Diana guesses, because this goddess is soft, warm, strong, and perhaps it is her connection to the lasso that is setting Diana’s nerve endings alight.

The woman laughs, gently, and it is a sound that Diana instinctively wants to hear again. 

“No, dear child, I am not Hestia. Do you not recognize your mother?”

At this, Diana balks. “My mother is Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, and she remains on Themyscira.” _Liar_ is unspoken, but hangs in the air all the same next to her defiantly tilted chin. 

“So she is,” says the goddess, with surprisingly good humor, if any of the stories are to be believed. “But I am Aphrodite, and I am your godly mother.”

“I have an Amazon mother and a godly father. Zeus. I know how I came to be,” Diana insists, wary. 

Aphrodite tuts. “You are a demigoddess, dear one, but not because Zeus impregnated your mother. She shaped you, but I gave you your life force.”

Diana is at a loss for words, trying to process what she is being told. “I am a daughter of Zeus. My lightning—” 

“I am not powerless, and love can be electric, dear one,” quips Aphrodite, “just as it can be soft, or iron-willed, or all-consuming. Your godly powers are something all your own, but you are my daughter plain and simple as you are Hippolyta’s.”

“Ares told me—”

“Ares lied. Does this truly surprise you?” 

No, it doesn't, but Diana is still trying to recover from the whiplash that she _was_ shaped from clay, as her mother once told her. There are too many tangled lies, even a century on. 

“Even when my mother lied to me about the circumstances of my birth, the tale always included Zeus,” she settles on. 

“Zeus liked intervening, and he liked getting credit,” Aphrodite huffs. “What your mother told you was only a partial lie. I alone heard her prayers, her suffering, and I begged Zeus to let me help. He allowed it. It was by his will, but by my hand. And then you were created, my beautiful daughter. The tale went how it went, but now needs to be set straight.” 

Diana’s brow furrows. “But why are you here now? After all this time?” 

“Because I can be,” Aphrodite replies simply, seemingly pleased that Diana has accepted her version of events, or at least not dismissed it entirely. “Make no mistake, my powers were sapped millennia ago, and then once more last century in an attempt to hold Ares at bay. I was incapable of making appearances in my corporeal form until very recently. You were my first housecall, dear one.”

Diana bends her head slightly in deference. She is not afraid of the goddess, per se, but sees no reason to make an enemy out of what is most likely a fickle being. “It is an honor.”

Aphrodite sighs. “No need for that, dear one. I came because you did what we could not, and defeated Ares. This is your thank you, even if it is a bit tardy.”

Diana tries again, unsure of exactly how to proceed. “There is no need to thank me. I did as I was born to do.”

“Yes, and no,” says Aphrodite with an air of ambivalence and mystery. “They call you the Godkiller, Diana, but your job was not to kill Ares. It was to protect humanity, to love them. Even in their imperfections. Which you have done, even when it was hard and messy.”

(Diana finds that she desperately wants this to be true, that there is something fundamentally absolving about this paradigm shift.)

“It is not about what they deserve, but what I believe,” says Diana, by way of explanation. She thinks of all it took to convince her of this, and the image of Steve rises unbidden, as it often does when she contemplates why she stays. (Her heart clenches and her throat closes, yet again, even a hundred years later. It has gotten easier, with time, but is still an open wound in her heart.)

“Yes, exactly, dear one. Which is why I am here. I have watched you struggle through a century of the worst that humanity has to offer, and I see how your heart hurts, and yet you believe. You love. So wholly and unreservedly, and the humans are all the better for it. And so I have a gift for you, for your enduring pain.” 

It is tempting, intriguing, but Diana knows that gifts—particularly gifts from the gods—do not come without a price. 

“Aphrodite, I cannot accept whatever it is you have to offer.” 

“Nonsense, child. I know what you are thinking. But this comes from me, as your mother, and from me, as the Goddess of Love, not on high from Olympus. Not from Zeus." The meaning is clear, even if she doesn't say it aloud: I am no _god._ This gift is freely given, not bound by the strings of men. "I am only sorry I could not deliver it to you sooner; acquiring it took my last bit of power, and I assumed you would rather have it a bit late than never at all.” 

“You are too generous,” Diana says warily, still mildly worried that there is a catch.

“And you are too kind. Chin up, dear; it's just about time for breakfast.”

With these perplexing words, Aphrodite begins to manifest, and a blinding light explodes across the rooftop, leaving Diana seeing spots for a few moments in the early Parisian light. 

There's a cough from the ground, and Diana realizes that Aphrodite has left something in her wake. Blinking, Diana kneels down, trying to clear her vision, and almost chokes when the figure says, “Angel?”

Two more rapid blinks, and her eyes confirm what the voice she heard indicated: Steve Trevor—winded, confused, and still in a sooty German uniform, looking for all the world as though no time has passed—is on the ground before her. 

Her first reaction is, anticlimactically, one of complete shock and immobilization, but then he takes a shuddering breath, and her instincts kick into overdrive, because he's here in front of her _alive and breathing_. (She's had this dream too many times to count, but she'll be damned if she doesn't make it worthwhile, even if it is just another gift from Hypnos.)

“Steve,” she breathes out, and then launches herself at him, wrapping him in a tight embrace, even in their awkward position on the ground. 

It takes only half a beat for Steve’s arms to wrap around hers, and it's this action that finally convinces her that he's real and _here_ , because her memory, sharp as it is, has never been able to accurately replicate the exact pressure of his arms around hers, has never faithfully recreated his exact scent or the warm roughness of his lips against her skin as his head tucks into her neck. 

She hears someone sobbing, and realizes with a jolt that it's her, but can't seem to stop the flow of tears, even once it's registered.

And then Steve’s voice is in her ear again, soothing her, whispering soft words with little meaning, and telling her that he's there. 

It's the fact that he sounds a bit befuddled, even as he does it, that finally forces her to pull herself together, because she's not the only one affected by Aphrodite’s actions. 

Slowly, she pulls away just enough to lean her forehead against his, look into his eyes. (She still needs the tactile affirmation that he's here.)

“Diana?” he says slowly, “What happened? Ares?”

“Gone,” she says, and she can't help the upturn in her voice, the smile threatening to break out on her features, despite the seriousness of the situation. “What do you remember?”

His brow furrows. “I—I pulled the trigger, and then—nothing, save for a blinding light. How did you get to me in time? I should be dead—not that I'm not thankful that I'm not,” he adds.

Diana exhales slowly. “I did not save you,” she admits. “I could not. I was embroiled in battle with Ares. I—I watched your plane explode. I watched you _die_.” Her voice breaks, because the thought is still unbearable. It takes her a moment to recollect herself. “It was not me,” she repeats, “but Aphrodite. Apparently some of the gods are still alive. And she saved you, plucked you out in the moment before the explosion.”

“Well...that's neat,” says Steve, and she's missed him _so much_ , missed his sincere comments that would sound sarcastic coming from anyone else so acutely, that hearing him now makes her erupt in a joyful laugh. 

“Yes, it is very neat. And she brought you here to me, safe and sound and most certainly not exploded.”

“So Ares is defeated and the war is won?” Steve asks hopefully. “You did it?”

“ _We_ did,” she emphasizes. “But Steve, there was a bit of a problem.”

“There always seems to be,” he says. “Is there another megalomaniac god we have to stop?” His tone is joking; she can tell he's trying to lighten her mood. (It might work if she didn't have to tell him that he's a century removed from his time.) 

“Aphrodite did not have the power to return you to me directly. She was only just able now, and...it has been more than one hundred years, Steve.”

“One hundred—please tell me you're pulling my leg, Diana.” 

“I wish I could, Steve. But it has been a century,” she says softly. 

“Well, that's slightly inconvenient,” Steve says, still aiming for a light tone, but Diana can tell he's rattled. 

“I am so sorry, Steve. In typical godly fashion, Aphrodite did not consider how you might feel on the matter, and acted with her own agenda. She did not consider that death might be preferable to living outside one's time.”

“That—Diana, no. You may not have heard me, but I meant what I said on the runway: I wished we had more time, and now we do. Even if it's not in the ideal way. If you'll have me, that is,” he adds sheepishly, “since a century has passed.”

“Steve Trevor,” Diana says firmly, cupping his face in her hand. “I would like nothing more than more time with you. Did you—did you mean the last thing you said to me at the airfield?” 

Steve exhales sharply. “I—Diana, of course I do.” 

(His use of present tense doesn't escape her notice.)

“There is not a single day that goes by that I do not regret our parting,” says Diana, tears welling up in her eyes once more. “Because you went forward without knowing that you were loved. So I do not care if this is a hundred years overdue, or a few too early, but I love you too.”

(She knows it's foolish, has had a hundred years to wonder if she really did love him, if they even knew each other well enough for love, if she still loves him only because she's built his memory up. But he's _here_ , and they have another chance, and she'll be damned if she doesn't say what she's feeling. On Themyscira, Diana wore her heart on her sleeve, but that isn't a good thing in Man’s World, and she's sick of hiding it. No, this is the time to turn a new leaf.)

Steve is clearly not unaffected by her words; emotion swirls across his face, and his eyes are glossy too, with his own unshed tears. 

"Diana, I would very much like to kiss you, if that's alright."

It absolutely is, and she closes the distance slowly, reverently. Their lips meet, and it feels like coming home, a softness and sureness that feels indescribably _right._

When they eventually pull apart, he looks at her in awe, like she is his salvation.

Normally, she would not like a man—anyone, really—to look at her this way, when she is just a person and not a benediction, but she finds that this time, with Steve, she doesn't mind. She just might be looking at Steve the same way. 

* * *

Despite the fact that a hundred years have passed, for Steve, it has been only a few hours since the battle. Diana can see the exhaustion written across his face, and tells him to get some sleep.

“Diana—” he begins to protest, but she gives him a stern look, tells him that she'll wake him up for lunch, if he really wants. He nods, but allows himself to be led to her bed, which is still crumpled and unmade from earlier. 

At his hesitation, she realizes that he probably feels too grimy from the battle, and leads him instead to the bathroom, where she quickly teaches him how to use her shower (and, as it happens, showers _in general_ ). She leaves him, collects her largest sleep-shirt and most-oversized sweatpants (which will still likely be a bit tight, but it's better than the remnants of the German uniform), and leaves those for him. 

He falls asleep almost immediately, and she spends nearly half an hour just watching him: the expression on his face is peaceful, and he looks years younger than she’s ever seen him. It takes her almost as long to keep convincing herself that he's here, really here, and the rise and fall of his chest calms her. 

Finally, she rouses herself, and calls into work, for which she isn't quite late yet, but will be shortly, and lets her secretary know that she won't be in for the day. (She hesitates, almost wants to say that she won't be in for the rest of the _week_ , but decides against that. It would raise too many questions. Already, people will be shocked, because she rarely misses a day of work.) 

She taps out a couple of emails, one to the interns, one to her secretary, and then, upon reflection, one to Bruce, because it's been a while since she's heard from him, and with Bruce, no news does _not_ necessarily translate to being good news. For good measure, she even sends an email to Vic, because she enjoys his correspondence. 

In the next two hours, Diana’s apartment becomes neater than it has in a while: her kitchen is spotless, her clutter in the sitting area straightened, her office organized and shelves dusted. Eventually, she moves on to actually _preparing_ food (which speaks to her true inability to sit still, because she _hates_ cooking with a passion, avoids it wherever possible). 

She is flipping pancakes (because her pantry does not have adequate ingredients for any meal that is not breakfast), about to go wake up Steve, when she hears footsteps, and suddenly a pair of arms slips around her waist from behind, and a very sleepy Steve nuzzles the side of her neck, kisses it.

It makes her inhale sharply (it is, after all, exactly the kind of silly domestic thing she used to have dreams about, right after he died), and that pulls Steve out of his sleepy fog. He immediately jumps back. 

“I'm so sorry, Diana,” he gasps. 

“Steve, it's alright,” she reassures softly, putting the final pancake on the stack, and turning off the gas. 

“No, Diana, I'm so sorry! I woke up and it felt like a wonderful dream and that's not an excuse b—” 

“Steve,” she tried to cut him off, facing him properly now. 

“—and I keep forgetting that it's been a hundred years for you—” he goes on frantically, before she finally manages to quiet him. 

“Steve!” she snaps, and places her hands on his shoulders, so that she can make eye contact. “It does not bother me. Did our conversation this morning mean so little to you? I love you, and you need not feel strange about physical affection.” 

His eyes darken at her words, and suddenly she is erasing the distance between them, and their lips meet. 

It is a good thing that she turned the gas off when she did, because they do not make it back to the kitchen for a while, the pancakes sitting in their stack, forgotten. 

* * *

There is something warming, gratifying, _soul-cleansing_ about being known so intimately. Sure, there are things Steve missed in the in-between, but it's easier to catch him up on those things than it would be to have to try to explain where she comes from, how she got to this world. Steve has seen her at her most idealistic, and also at her most disillusioned, and he loves her anyways. He's also easy to talk to in a way that most people aren't, and willing to listen in a way that most people _won't_. 

As they lay in bed that evening, curled up together, she relishes it. 

“The last time we were together, I thought I was made of clay, brought to life by Zeus’s hand," she tells him, still trying to make sense of it all. (It's possible that she's been using Steve's arrival to postpone a slight identity crisis, but then she realizes that she can share this with Steve.) "Then Ares told me Zeus had a hand in my birth the normal way. Now Aphrodite tells me the story about the clay was true, except it was by _her_ hand. I am not entirely sure what to think anymore, Steve.” 

“Well, isn't that just a Topsy-turvy sort of lineup,” Steve says by way of reply, apparently mulling it over. Before she can say anything else, however, he has something more to add. “I gotta say though, Diana. It seems to me that for all the flashy powers you have, it's your capacity to love that makes you strongest.”

It's such a _Steve_ response. To casually distill something down to its essence, and make it seem like an accident. As if he hasn't just seen right through her. 

"And I mean, the things you can do are truly spectacular! I don't mean to say they aren't. It's just that it's how you use them that really matters, and you use them because you're so full of love. Compassion. Kindness. Anyhow," he trails of, scrubs his hand against the back of neck awkwardly. 

"No; thank you, I think you are right," she says, catching his hand. Then, "I want it to be her," she admits. "I want Aphrodite to be my godly parent. Is that bad?" 

Steve considers for a moment. "My mythology is a little rusty, but I know better than to choose a Greek god out loud." 

At this, Diana laughs. He's not wrong. 

"But no," Steve says. "I don't think it's wrong. I can't think of a single myth where being Zeus's kid really worked out for someone." 

"Steve!" she exclaims, but she's still laughing. 

The conversation dies out soon after, and sleep follows not far behind. 

* * *

On this day, the solstice, the darkest day of the year, Diana wakes alone, but falls asleep next to her love. Like the light of a bonfire in the darkness, like the merry twinkle of Christmas lights or the soft, resolute glow of Chanukah candles, like the promise of five extra minutes of sun, like the clean expanse of new beginnings, there is a little extra hope in the world, bright with possibility. The days will lengthen and with them their love, and they will finally have the time to find out what people do when there aren't wars to be fought. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and happy midwinter!


End file.
